


he's a nightmare

by likearecord



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Alternate Universe - Summer Camp, Homophobic Language, Implied/Referenced Past Self Harm, M/M, Past Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-05
Updated: 2021-02-05
Packaged: 2021-03-17 16:21:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,544
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29228388
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/likearecord/pseuds/likearecord
Summary: “Watch out for Minyard,” eight separate people tell Neil on his first day. “He’s a nightmare.”Inspired by Halsey | Nightmare.
Relationships: Neil Josten/Andrew Minyard
Comments: 58
Kudos: 651
Collections: AFTG Mixtape Exchange 2021





	he's a nightmare

**Author's Note:**

  * For [makebelieveanything](https://archiveofourown.org/users/makebelieveanything/gifts).



> For Mads. 
> 
> Your song grabbed me by the nips and took me on a ride. I hope I did it justice. ♥
> 
> Immeasurable thanks, as always, to @justadreamfox, who braids my hair and tells me I'm pretty and betas my nonsense.

“Watch out for Minyard,” eight separate people tell Neil on his first day. “He’s a nightmare.” 

“You seem like a nice kid,” one of them says. 

Neil sincerely doubts that. “Do I?” 

Once, Neil asks, “What’s so bad about him?” 

“We call him the monster,” the girl says around the pale purple gum in her mouth. “If you get what I mean.” 

If Neil knows anything, it’s monsters. “No, I don’t think I do,” he says. 

“Oh honey,” she says. “He’s going to eat you alive.” 

“Stay away from him,” Neil’s boss orders. “This place can’t burn down again.” 

“He killed someone,” one of the guys says bluntly. 

“At _least_ one,” his friend clarifies. “But, yeah, he’s a straight up murderer.” 

Only one girl doesn’t tack the warning on as an addendum to her name. 

“Aren’t you going to warn me?” Neil asks. 

“No,” she says, a wisp of amusement in her voice. “I don’t think I will.” 

There is nothing Neil wants to do more than meet Minyard. 

When it happens, it’s anticlimactic but not disappointing. The blur of a person in Neil’s mind clarifies into a short guy, maybe shorter than Neil, though it’s hard to tell with the way he’s bent over his cabin’s railing, forearms in black armbands braced against the wood, cigarette dangling from one hand. His fair skin is tanned just this side of a sunburn; Neil sees the hint of ghostly white under the cropped sleeves of his shirt. 

“Andrew,” the girl escorting Neil says. Dan, he thinks—he’s met way too many people today. “This is Neil. He’s new.” 

Andrew Minyard scans him with hot eyes. They could be honey, they could be olive; Neil can’t tell in the shadows of the porch roof. He wants to do a survey of his own, but his breath hitches at the slow journey of Andrew’s gaze from his head to his toes and then back up again. When he finishes, Andrew turns his attention back to the cigarette. 

“Nice, Minyard,” Dan says. “Very welcoming.” 

“Don’t put him in my cabin,” Andrew says flatly. 

“So that was him?” he asks Dan as they walk briskly towards another corner of the fields. “The famous Minyard.” 

“In the flesh,” Dan says grimly. 

“Will he be at the thing tonight?” Neil asks. 

“Someone will probably drag him, yeah. Listen, I know all the warnings and stories probably seem hyperbolic and you’re going to want to make up your own mind. But he really can be awful. Most of us steer clear.” 

Most of them, Neil thinks, isn’t all of them. Which of them don’t fear him? The girl with pastel hair, probably. “Got it,” he says. “Big bad wolf.” 

That night, Neil allows himself to be taken to the staff gathering. 

“We’ll start here,” the blonde girl (Allison, Neil reminds himself) says. “So Wymack thinks we’re satisfied with the lame official party. But we’ll move on in a couple of hours.” 

The party is in a lounge in one of the long, low buildings that houses the kids dorms and other administrative bullshit. The furniture is blandly generic, though comfortable looking; someone has shoved the couches and chairs to the periphery of the room, leaving a wide open space in the middle where people mingle. He recognizes most of them—Matt, talking animatedly to Dan; his boss’s son, Kevin, whom Neil has met only in passing; the tall burly guy who’d told Neil that Andrew Minyard was a murderer. “There’s Seth,” Allison says, spotting him. She shakes her hair out, hoists her breasts up higher by the underwire in her bra, and squares her shoulders. “Want to come say hi?” 

Neil does not want to come say hi. He scans the room, looking for water or snacks or Andrew Minyard. He finds all three in a row against one of the otherwise bare walls: the snack table, piled with bags of chips and grocery store cupcakes and a couple of halfhearted dip bowls; the drink table, on which rows of two liter sodas and gallons of tea are lined up; and Andrew Minyard, leaning in the corner with a drink in one hand and his phone in the other. His thumb swipes across the screen over and over. 

Neil grabs a bottle of water and plants himself in front of Andrew, waiting for him to look up and acknowledge Neil’s presence. 

It takes a while. 

His eyes, Neil sees now, are hazel, some impossible mix of topaz and layered greens—the birth and death of foliage in two fathomless rings. They start at Neil’s feet this time and don’t stop until they meet Neil’s gaze. 

“Problem?” Andrew asks. 

“Everyone seems to think you’re scary.” 

“Your point?” 

“Why?” 

One golden eyebrow goes up. “Do you want to find out firsthand?” 

“Yeah, maybe.” 

Something in Andrew’s blank expression seems to catch the light, just for a moment. Then a heavy arm lands on Neil’s shoulders; he jumps, jerks to the side instinctually, and finds himself pulled closer and tighter. 

“Neil, buddy,” a voice says cheerfully. Matt. Neil feels himself sag at the sudden rush and release of adrenaline. “Come hang out.” 

“Your rescue is here,” Andrew says pointedly. He turns his attention back to his phone, dismissing them both. 

Walking away feels like wresting a magnet from metal. He watches Andrew over his shoulder as Matt pulls him towards the others, chattering enthusiastically about the campers who will arrive tomorrow, about the vagaries of the camp’s facilities—the half and quarter-courts where campers run drills, the full courts where scrimmages are played, the goal wall in one that’s so sensitive it lights up if a bug lands on it. 

The party trickles from the lounge to one of the girls cabins. Neil is pulled along in the wake of the bubbling happiness of the little group that seems dead set on adopting him. He settles into the beanbag they press upon him and nurses a beer as the energy of the room spirals and spirals from sharp wit to giddy laughter. Allison spins Renee past Neil’s feet. The blondes of their hair mix. Renee keeps them upright while Allison, delighted, moves as expansively as if they were alone in an empty ballroom. 

Neil takes this as his cue. He pours the rest of his warm beer down the bathroom sink, slides the window open, and hefts himself out through it. His feet land in the soft green grass of early summer with a muted thud. He reaches for the sash, pulls the window closed, and turns back to his escape only to stop short at the sight of Andrew Minyard watching him from a couple of cabins down. It’s the red glow of the cigarette that catches his attention—without that, he may never have seen Andrew through the shadows keeping him secret. 

“You’re back,” Andrew observes when Neil gets close enough. 

“I never left. I’m here to stay.” 

“We will see,” Andrew drawls. 

“I’m not buying it,” Neil says. 

“Hmm?” 

“The story they’re telling about you.” 

Andrew flicks the ash off of the end of his cigarette and says, sounding infinitely bored. “I cannot tell you how much I do not care.” 

“I know scary. You’re something else.” 

“Is this a sex thing?” Andrew asks. “I’m not interested.” 

“What? No,” Neil says, surprised. And then, more thoughtfully, “I don’t think so.” 

“Great,” Andrew says flatly. “A stalker who won’t suck my dick.” 

“I thought you weren’t interested.” 

“Go to bed,” Andrew tells him. “Night time is grown up time.” 

“Sure,” Neil says easily. “See you tomorrow.” 

He can feel Andrew’s eyes boring through his back as he walks away. 

The children are exponentially more frightening than Andrew Minyard. Wymack puts him with Matt and the younger group of kids—the sixth graders. Neil hadn’t been afraid of sixth graders when he himself was one, but perhaps he had simply been numbed by the horror of being surrounded by them. Matt is good with the little demons. Though, to be fair, at least Matt is taller than all of them. 

Neil spends most of the day adjusting grips on racquets and helping put on padding and shouting “ _No more than ten steps_ ” at the melee of confused pre-teens that mostly seem to enjoy the excuse to knock each other down. 

When they get a break, he drinks half a bottle of cold water from the cooler and rolls the rest across his forehead. The room is air conditioned, but nowhere near enough to compensate for all the body heat and hormones and whatever infinitesimal increase in temperature accompanies a twelve-year-old screaming _fuck_ over and over like it’s his name. 

“Where’d you go last night, dude?” Matt asks. “You kind of disappeared.” 

“Tired,” Neil says. “Went to bed.” 

“Yeah, but, when? How? You didn’t say goodbye.” 

“Yes I did.” 

“You did?” 

“How drunk were you?” Neil asks. 

“Not,” Matt starts, then frowns. “Not that much.” 

Neil shrugs. “Sorry. I don’t know what to tell you.” 

That night, he passes out face-first on his bed early, exhausted by the kids, the heat, the constant movement, Matt’s boundless good cheer. When he rolls over in the morning, aching everywhere, the thought of putting on his running shoes holds all of the appeal of a root canal. 

Wymack says, “Hope you enjoyed the honeymoon. I’m putting you with one of the intolerables today.” 

“Andrew?” Neil asks. 

“Not yet,” Wymack snorts. “I have a bad feeling about you two. You’re with Kevin. Try not to kill him.” 

“Try?” Neil asks. 

“Your very hardest,” Wymack says. 

“Isn’t he your son?” Neil asks. 

“Just do your best.” 

“I know what they say about me,” Kevin says when Neil meets him at the field. “But there’s nothing wrong with having high standards.” 

“There isn’t,” Neil agrees. 

“There’s very little I hate more than wasted potential.” 

Neil nods. 

“I guess we’ll see if you can keep up,” Kevin says, and then blows his whistle. 

After practice and dinner and curfew, when his time is his own again, Neil breezes out of his cabin and down the steps without waiting to see what his roommates have to say about it. He knows where to look, now, so he spots the tiny red dot of Andrew’s cigarette quickly. The shadows close around him, when he steps close enough, but Andrew is somehow all the clearer in the darkness. 

“Kevin likes you,” Andrew says well after the silence has stretched and broken and curled around their feet. 

“I like him too.” 

“He’s a self-righteous, pain in the ass drill sergeant.” 

“Yes,” Neil agrees. 

“I do not like you.” 

“Okay.” Neil shrugs. 

Andrew sucks in another breath of smoke and lets it leak very slowly out of the corner of his mouth. His eyes never leave Neil. He comes to some invisible, unspoken decision and grinds the cigarette out against the side of the cabin before straightening and striding towards the treeline. Neil watches him move away, measuring how many steps he should let Andrew get ahead before he follows; after three, Andrew throws a glance back over his shoulder and says, “You coming?” 

Under the unblinking eye of the moon, Neil walks into the woods with the man everyone here has told him is a monster. 

They wind through the woods along a route that would seem random if not for the confidence in every step Andrew takes. When they stop, Neil finds himself at the overgrown edge of the lake. A fallen tree holds itself just out of the water, the bark gnarled and rough in the moonlight. Andrew climbs onto its base, a bulbous thing that had once held the weight of its world and now lies defeated, its roots still yearning for the ground. It could be something else entirely—Andrew straddles it as though it were a beast, a horse or a dragon, something living he could sit astride and take the reins of. 

There is no talking. Andrew lights another cigarette, though he seems to mostly forget it’s in his hand. Neil hoists himself up further down the trunk of the tree, leaving Andrew his space, and carefully stands, balancing himself on the sloping curve. He takes modest steps forward along its length, testing the strength of the wood and the depth of the water. Only ten or so feet along, the boughs sink into the restless black mirror of the lake. 

Neil retreats, steps out of his shoes, peels off his socks, puts it all carefully on the bank. 

Barefoot, the bark is rougher against his feet than it has any right to be. Wide peeling flakes, dehydrated by the summer sun, press against the sensitive skin of his arches; he curls his toes around a particularly thick ridge and watches the gentle sway of the tree beneath his weight. 

“You are going to fall in,” Andrew says, breaking the silence. 

Neil looks back to see Andrew watching him. His face is illuminated by the moon, open and, for once, not blank—it’s curiosity, maybe. Or anticipation. Mildly one of the two or, maybe, both. Neil is twenty feet out, give or take. The trunk is narrow enough here that he has to stand heel-to-toe. 

He takes another step. His daring presses the length of wood ahead of him beneath the surface; the water swirls up around his toes, cold and gritty with silt and whatever else lives in it. 

“That’s enough,” Andrew says abruptly. “Time to go.” 

Morning brings another day of coaching angry teenagers with Kevin. One of them sidles up to Neil, looks him up and down, unimpressed. “I’m here instead of juvie,” the kid announces. 

“Cool,” Neil says. 

“Don’t you want to know what I did?” 

“Not particularly.” 

“I burned down my school.” 

“To the ground?” 

The kid flushes. “Well, no. They put the fire out.” 

“Lack of follow-through,” Neil says, nodding. “That explains your weak passing skills.” 

That night, Andrew starts moving before Neil even reaches him. They bump shoulders as Andrew passes—Neil uses the momentum to turn and follow. This time, he’s led to an uneven clearing deeper in the trees. The ground is rocky on one side, with wildflowers and wild grass creeping through the cracks. Andrew seats himself on top of a rickety picnic table and crosses his legs under him. 

Neil circles the ground until he finds a smooth stretch of soft plants and no rocks. 

“Did you do cartwheels as a kid?” Neil asks. The sound of fabric against splinters fills the hollow quiet. When Neil looks, he sees that Andrew has moved, turning a three-quarter circle so that he can have Neil in his line of sight. 

“Probably,” Andrew says. 

Neil cartwheels. It’s sloppy. His feet hit the ground unevenly. He has to push himself up to standing when he’s done. 

“Did you?” Andrew asks mockingly. 

“Probably,” Neil says. He tries again. 

Cartwheels are boring once he’s mastered them. Neil considers the ground. His first few attempts at a handstand are unquestionably failures. He under-estimates often, sending his legs crashing back down to the ground. He over-estimates, once, and lands flat on his back in a flurry of indignant pollen. 

He gets it, though. Finally figures out the balance of his body. He stays upright for five seconds. Then ten. Then fifteen, then walking a few steps with his hands before he drops his feet. His shirt is not immune to gravity. It drops around his chest every time. 

“You’re an idiot,” Andrew tells him. “Do you ever sit down?” 

As an answer, Neil crosses to the picnic table and lays himself out along the bench. His view is all trees and stars until Andrew leans forward enough that Neil can see his face. 

“Truth for a truth?” Andrew asks. 

“Sure.” 

“Your scars,” Andrew says. 

“Real truth?” Neil asks. 

“Yes.” 

“Sadistic mob enforcer father.” 

Andrew takes this in, weighs it. Eventually, he nods. “Your turn.” 

“Why do you work here?” 

Andrew doesn’t seem to like people much. Or exy. Or existing. 

“Troubled youth,” Andrew says, “grow up to be troubled adults.” 

“You used to come as a camper?” Neil asks. 

“That’s two questions.” 

He’s right. It is. Neil closes his eyes and feels the night air against his skin, smells the acrid burn of Andrew’s cigarette, and balances on the battered plank of wood between his shoulder blades until they run out of cigarettes and excuses to stay out. 

The cafeteria is all riotous energy save a small island of calm at the fringes. Neil works through the line and then carries his tray past the other staff, ignoring the waving hands and sliding in next to Kevin at the only uncrowded table in the room. Across from them, Andrew continues separating bites from his shepherd’s pie with the blunt edge of his fork, apparently both totally occupied with and bored by the task. 

“Neil,” Kevin says. 

“Hey,” Neil answers. “Hi Andrew.” 

Andrew spares him a single, short flick of his eyes and then goes back to his food. 

“Tigers or Warriors?” Kevin asks abruptly. 

“Neither,” Neil responds. 

“What do you mean, _neither_?” 

“Wolves, definitely.” 

“ _Wolves_? Does mediocrity do it for you?” 

“Does predictability do it for _you_?” 

“If you mean consistency,” Kevin says heatedly. “Then yes, it does.” 

For the first time, Andrew is leaning against the railing outside of Neil’s cabin when he steps over the threshold. 

Neil grins at him. 

“Do not look at me like that,” Andrew orders. 

Neil can’t stop. 

“I will leave you here,” Andrew says. 

“Sorry,” Neil says. “I’ll stop.” He doesn’t. He can’t. Andrew won’t see it from the lead anyway. 

Pale light creeps in Wymack’s office windows when Neil turns up before their morning staff meeting early the next week. 

“Fine,” Wymack sighs. “I’ll put you with Minyard. Promise me you won’t set anything on fire.” 

“Why would we do that?” Neil asks. 

“Frankly, I’m not sure either of you would need a reason.” 

When Wymack announces the assignments for the day, Andrew levels an unamused look across the room at Neil. Neil mimics Andrew’s two-fingered salute in response. 

Hours into practice, energized for once by the ruthless bloodsport of the older campers, Neil feels a tickle of something _wrong_ at the back of his neck. He looks up and scans the room—on the other side is Andrew, his hand fisted in the jersey of some high school junior twice his size. He’s forcing the kid to his knees, his face cold and blank and somehow all the scarier for it. Neil runs. 

Andrew barely spares him a glance when he gets there. He turns his attention fully back onto the sullen kid and says, “Someday, you’re going to call the wrong gay man a faggot.” 

“Could be today,” Neil suggests. 

“Fuck,” the kid says. “Sorry, but what the fuck. I wasn’t even talking to you.” 

“Weren’t you?” Andrew asks. 

“No, Jesus. Sorry. I was just...fucking around.” 

Neil assesses the whiteness of Andrew’s knuckles, the cold fire in his eyes, the rapidly disintegrating pride of the alpha jock at his knees. “You’re out,” Neil tells the kid. “Fuck off back to your dorm.” 

“My dorm?” 

“Arts and crafts, yoga, whatever,” Neil says dismissively. “No more exy for you today. Get off my court.” 

Andrew releases the kid as easily as if he’d been brushing a crumb off of his shirt. 

“You can’t assault the campers,” Dan says at dinner. “What the fuck, Minyard.” 

“He didn’t,” Neil says. 

Allison sniffs next to her. “That’s not what I heard.” 

Andrew says, “He deserved it.” 

“Yeah, well, forgive me if I don’t trust your judgment.” 

“Then trust _mine_ ,” Neil stresses. “I was actually there.” 

“You definitely should have known better,” Dan says, her voice softer. “Don’t let him—” 

“What?” Neil interrupts. “Get some asshole kid’s attention? Tell him not to throw slurs around? You must have an incredibly loose definition of assault.” 

Andrew stands abruptly, shoving his chair back. He’s gone before Neil can even think about following. 

“Don’t bother defending him,” Allison tells Neil. “He won’t appreciate it.” 

That night, Andrew is nowhere to be found. Neil does a few loops, finds his way back to the collapsed tree at the lake and sits there, alone, watching the water ripple and wondering what he’s done wrong. He could have kept his mouth shut—maybe should have kept his mouth shut. The pile-on rubbed him the wrong way, though. Neil thinks about Andrew’s grip on the kid’s jersey translating into an attack through the staggering power of gossip. He thinks about the monster, the murderer, the nightmare. He doesn’t really know why it all makes him sick. 

Neil is back with Kevin after that. Kevin and Andrew are roommates, so they must get along. How, he has no idea, but it seems like they must. “How’s Andrew?” Neil asks. 

“Fine,” Kevin says, his face pulled into a question. “Should he not be?” 

“No,” Neil says. “That’s good.” 

He doesn’t wait until after curfew to slip out of his cabin this time, so he’s already on Andrew’s steps when the door swings open and Andrew moves through it, his cigarette pack and lighter held loosely in one hand. 

“Want to steal a boat with me?” Neil asks. 

Neil rows them to the middle of the lake. He’s never done it before. It takes a while to get the rhythm down, the push and pull of the oars, the right moment to lift them from the water and loop them around to begin again. Andrew hasn’t lit a cigarette but the pack and lighter are still in his hand as he sits across from Neil in the stolen boat, silent but watching. 

When Neil decides they’re far enough out, he carefully positions the oars where they can’t float away, and then looks up to meet Andrew’s eyes. He says, “I’m sorry.” 

“For what?” Andrew asks mildly. It’s deceptive. Neil knows enough to know that. 

He thinks hard about how to phrase it. How to explain the way his whole chest tightened at the unfairness of it. How to distill it down to something clear and real and right. “For caring about what they said,” he offers, once he thinks he can’t get any more to the heart of it than that. 

Andrew finally tucks his cigarettes into the pocket of his jacket. “Can you lie down without capsizing us?” 

“I don’t know,” Neil says. “Let’s find out.” 

They lie side-by-side in the bottom of the boat. The sound of the water hitting the thin metal of the side echoes around them, outdone only by the wailing of the crickets and the silence where Neil thinks his pounding heartbeat should be. They’re far from the city, but the stars aren’t the brightest Neil has ever seen them. He turns his head to look at Andrew instead. 

Andrew is already watching him. Their eyes meet and catch and hold and then Andrew looks away. 

“Truth?” Andrew asks. 

“Sure.” 

“If I don’t scare you, what does?” 

“Sixth graders,” Neil answers promptly. He smiles up at the stars when Andrew huffs out something that’s almost a laugh. “Uh, enclosed spaces. Being followed. Standing out.” 

“There’s a story there.” 

“Yeah,” Neil agrees. 

“Maybe next time. It’s your turn.” 

Neil is warm where their sides press together. The boat sways gently. The air is dense with humidity and the smell of green things. He wants to know everything there is to know about Andrew, every crevice and secret thought. He thinks, maybe, that almost all of Andrew’s thoughts are secret. That this game is an incredible privilege. 

Slowly, Neil asks, “What do you think the afterlife is like?” 

He feels more than sees Andrew turn his head to look at him. “Are you serious?” Andrew asks flatly. 

“I’ll take ‘there isn’t one’ as an answer, but then we’ll have to get into the nature of human consciousness.” 

By the time Andrew takes the oars to row them back, they’ve drifted so far that the camp’s lights are pinpricks. Constellations on the shore. 

Kevin tries to teach the strikers how to turn their passing into informed, mathematically-influenced shots on the goal. It doesn’t go well. 

“No,” he barks from inside the goal. “Look at me. How high does my arm go? How long does it take to make the arc? Which way are my feet turned? Neil, get over here and show them.” 

The helmet Neil slips over his head is sweaty and a little too tight. It pinches his hair painfully. He grabs the racquet one of the girls hands him and positions himself a few yards from Kevin, the bucket of balls at his feet. 

“Now watch,” Kevin says. “Neil has been paying attention. He has some idea of what I’m going to do.” 

Neil has been paying attention, but he doesn’t know what Kevin’s going to do. He scoops a ball into his net and tosses it a little, letting it fly and then catching it again, as Kevin does what every wilderness survival guide tells you to do if you see a bear: makes himself as big as possible. It’s too stiff. Not natural. Neil fires the ball right between Kevin’s legs, fast, so that Kevin has to jump back to block it. 

“Neil,” Kevin says, his voice stern but higher than usual. 

Neil scoops another ball into his net and sends this one just out of Kevin’s reach on the left. Kevin throws himself to the side to get there in time. Neil waits just long enough for Kevin to get his balance back before he shoots another at the upper right corner. This time, Kevin slams it right back at Neil—he has to jump a foot into the air to scoop it up, but he catches it, lands, spins low and aims it all of three inches above Kevin’s head. 

After, when they remember that this is supposed to be about the kids, Kevin pulls off his shirt, wipes the sweat from his face, and says, “You’re pretty good.” 

“Thanks,” Neil says drily. 

“We should play sometime. At night.” 

Neil thinks about tiptoeing past Seth’s bulky, snoring body and meeting Andrew in the yellow light of the bare porch bulb. “Yeah,” he says. “Maybe.” 

But it’s only Neil and Andrew on the court when they sneak into the one furthest from the dorms and cabins. It’s past midnight and pitch black in the windowless room. Neil hears a rubbery click behind him and blinks at the sudden beam of light; it pierces the darkness, glinting weakly off the court walls in the distance. 

“You’re a goalie,” Neil says. 

“That is what they tell me.” 

“So, is that where we’re going?” 

It isn’t. Andrew leads him up to the top of the bleachers instead. It’s a modest set, nothing compared to the college and pro stadiums, but it puts them up high enough that every echoing sound is immediate in Neil’s ears. 

They straddle the same bench, a few feet apart. Andrew puts the flashlight between them and spins it, sending the blade of light dancing around the cavernous space. 

“Are we telling ghost stories?” Neil asks. 

“In a manner of speaking.” 

Neil doesn’t know what that means, but Andrew is always very precise with his words, so. He waits. 

“I don’t know who my father is,” Andrew says. 

Neil nods. 

Andrew steadies the still-rolling flashlight and turns it to face himself. Neil watches, breath held, as Andrew shrugs off his jacket. He sets it neatly aside and plucks two knives from the left armband. 

“I was in foster care,” Andrew continues, as though he hadn’t paused. “And then juvie.” 

He tucks his fingers under the upper edge of the armband and peels it down. In the focused beam of the flashlight, Neil watches a scripture’s worth of thin white scars appear down the paper-white skin of Andrew’s forearms. The lines are tidy, most of them. They stand in rigid formation; only a few are rebels, skittering sideways or bulging at the ends—the places where Andrew cut furiously or too deeply. 

Neil looks. He bears witness. He tries to count and loses track at eighteen, when they start to creep into the shadows at the crease of the arm. Andrew’s eyes are squinted a little against the light. He’s put Neil in the dark, given him permission and space to look. Wordlessly, Neil spins the flashlight to face himself. He can’t see much past the beam; as he’d suspected, the man opposite barely more than a silhouette. Only the peaks of his face catch the light. 

Neil shrugs off his hoodie and pulls his shirt over his head. 

When they part, midway between their cabins, shoes shaking loose the nascent dew from the blades of grass, Andrew says, “Sunday afternoon.” 

“I’m off,” Neil answers. “Eleven to three.” 

Andrew nods. “Come at noon.” 

Saturday is scrimmage day. Neil stands two steps back from Kevin’s route along their side of the court, watching him pace back and forth, bouncing on the balls of his feet, throwing his hands up in frustration whenever one of their team does something catastrophically stupid. He throws his hands up a lot. 

“You’re off tomorrow, right?” Allison asks. 

“Mostly,” Neil says. “I’m taking some of them running in the late afternoon, once it cools down.” 

“Some of us are going to town. You should come.” 

“I have plans,” Neil says. 

Allison’s eyes narrow. “Are they Minyard plans?” 

Neil shrugs. 

“I don’t get it,” she says. “You’re, like, so into him. And he’s the worst.” 

“So am I,” Neil says. 

“What? The worst? No way. You’re like a sweet baby animal.” 

Neil turns a skeptical look on her. 

“Okay, fine, like a sweet baby porcupine.” 

“And he isn’t?” Neil asks. 

Allison frowns. “No, he’s like…” 

“Do not say monster.” 

“Fine,” she huffs. “He’s like…. fuck, I don’t know.” 

“Maybe that’s your problem,” Neil suggests blandly. 

“What?” 

“You don’t have a word for him.” 

“So you’re not coming,” Allison sighs. 

“Nope.” 

Andrew still has bed head when he swings his cabin door open for Neil at 11:56 a.m. 

“Wow,” Neil says. “Is this what you look like in the daytime?” 

“Shut up.” 

“I like it. You seem taller.” 

“I regret inviting you.” 

“I can go.” 

Andrew grabs a handful of Neil’s shirt and pulls him through the door. 

There is just enough room on the twin mattress for them to lie facing each other, bodies in slight arcs to leave safe space between them. In the cradle of that womb, Andrew’s phone lies face down, spitting out something urgent and harsh. _I’m no sweet dream but I’m a hell of a night_. 

Neil doesn’t know much about the way this works, about the borderlines between interest and attraction, friendship and desire. But he does know what it feels like to stand at the edge of a cliff and shuffle forward until your toes are touching nothing but air. Some hot wind is at his back, coaxing him forward. A restless, pent-up feeling has spread through his body like an infection. He doesn’t know how to get rid of it, how to tear it or cut it or bleed it out. He thinks he can’t let it loose either, though, or it might crash through their little world and crush them both. 

“It’s your turn,” Neil says quietly. 

“I know.” 

“Ask me something.” 

“Why are you here?” 

He doesn’t mean the camp. They’ve already covered that. 

Neil says, “It’s the only place I want to be.” 

Andrew reaches out, slowly, telegraphing his movements. If this was a game, you’d be able to see his intentions from all the way across the court. From the highest row in the biggest stadium. He pushes Neil’s hair back, twisting the longer strands around his fingers. 

Neither of them move when the cabin door swings open violently. 

“Oh, good,” Kevin says, pleased. “You’re both here.” 

The Wednesday morning meeting drags on, hitched as it is to Kevin and Dan’s investment in preparing the campers better for their third scrimmage day at the end of the week. Neil spends countless minutes watching Andrew as he studiously ignores it. 

A cloud of perfume and chapstick appears at his shoulder. One of the office girls—Melissa, maybe? Marissa?—places her mouth inches from his ear and says, “Neil, you have a phone call.” 

“What?” Neil asks, surprised. 

“Your dad called,” she clarifies. 

Which is. Not possible. Nathan Wesninski is dead and buried, along with his son. Neil Josten has no father. All of the blood in him pools to his feet despite these facts, making them leaden and immovable. 

“My father is dead,” he whispers. 

“Oh,” she says, startled. “I’m so sorry. I thought he said he was your dad, but maybe—” 

“No one would call me.” 

“Um. I mean, he asked for you, but I could have—” 

Andrew is suddenly there, crouching in front of Neil, his hands cupping soothingly over the outsides of Neil’s legs. He says, as flat as ever but betrayed by the sweeping motions of his thumbs, “What happened?” 

“My father is dead,” Neil repeats. 

Marissa says, helplessly, “He has a phone call.” 

They’re drawing attention now. Dan has stopped talking. Kevin is still going, but he keeps pausing every few words, distracted. 

“Okay,” Andrew says, his voice level and steady and calm. Bedrock. “Let’s go find out who it is.” 

Neil trails Andrew too closely. He keeps almost stepping on Andrew’s heels. In the generic beigeness of the office, it’s Andrew who picks up the receiver and presses the blinking hold light. He says, “Who is this?” 

He says, “No, I’m not.” 

He says, “None of your business.” 

He says, “Uncle?” and raises an eyebrow at Neil, who nods numbly. 

He says, “Stuart.” Neil nods again. 

He says, “Hold,” and presses the button again. “British. Arrogant. Do you want to talk to him?” 

“Yeah,” Neil says. His body floods with warm relief. It swirls through him in eddies and currents. “He’s my mother’s brother.” 

Andrew offers him the handset without another word, but puts his hand on Neil’s back and leaves it there. A five-pointed star that burns hotter than the still-swirling relief. 

In the dark of night, the dock is foreboding. The well-maintained planks seem precarious. The slant of moonlight highlights every dip and crack in the wood. At the end of it, Andrew sits; he pulls Neil down, too, keeping him close. The water is high—Neil pulls off his tennis shoes, rolls up his pants, slips his feet into it and watches the pale blur of his skin move like phantoms in the deep. 

He hasn’t thanked Andrew for earlier. He’s not sure he should. He’s not sure Andrew considered it anything extraordinary. He was just—being there. Does Andrew even know that that's everything? 

“Stop it,” Andrew says. 

“What?” 

“I can hear your two brain cells trying to form a thought.” 

“What if it’s a thought about you?” 

“Even worse.” 

Neil plucks the lit cigarette from Andrew’s hand and brings it to his mouth. He sucks in a shallow breath of the punishing smoke and blows it out into Andrew’s face. There’s no way to tell who closes more of the distance, who moves first or faster. There’s just Andrew, an inhale away, a question in his eyes. 

It’s Neil who eliminates the space between them. 

It’s Andrew who cradles the back of Neil’s head and works his mouth open. 

They break for breath. Neil hears himself make some kind of sound, a prayer in a language he doesn’t speak. He feels Andrew’s hand settle on him again, flat between his shoulder blades. 

And then, Andrew shoves. 

Neil topples over the edge, sinks and comes out of the water sputtering, surprised, weighed down by his clothes. 

“Prick,” Neil says. 

“Mmhmm,” Andrew agrees. 

“Are you getting in yourself or are we going to fight for it?” 

“It’s getting late,” Andrew says, hefting himself to his feet. 

Neil peels off his soaked shirt and throws it. It hits Andrew’s chest with a wet slap, hard enough that droplets spray back onto Neil’s face. 

“I am going to drown you,” Andrew says. 

“Have to get in to do that.” 

Andrew’s hands go to the button of his jeans. 

Neil fights with his own jeans, struggling to peel them off and tread water and not drown at the same time. He barely has the last leg free when Andrew climbs down the ladder, retaining some dignity in underwear and a t-shirt, armbands off, thick-soled shoes set neatly on the dock. 

The second time they kiss, neither of them can touch the ground. Neil wraps his arms and legs around Andrew and trusts that Andrew’s hold on the edge of the dock will keep their heads above water. 

On beach day, no one bothers to schedule Neil or Andrew as lifeguards. 

“Tell you what,” Wymack says, “you two keep yourselves out of trouble and I’ll consider it a job well done.” 

“You wound me,” Andrew says in the tonelessness of his simplest sarcasm. 

“This,” Wymack says, pointing between them. “This is my worst nightmare. Just behave yourselves.” 

Neil says, “Yes, coach.” 

There’s a hammock set at the end of the narrow stretch of sand along the edge of the water. It’s angled a bit, so they’ll be able to keep half an eye on the kids anyway, the way Wymack knows they will. Neil drags one of the beach loungers over and sets it parallel to the hammock; they’re further apart this way, with Andrew’s head propped up at the foot of Neil’s lounge, but they can see each other. Sometimes, maybe most of the time, seeing each other is all they really need. 

“Sunscreen,” Andrew reminds Neil. 

“I did.” 

“Set a timer to re-apply.” 

“I did.” 

“Three,” Andrew says. 

“Three?” 

“Brain cells.” 

Somewhere in the water, Kevin whoops. A loud splash follows right behind. 

Neil kicks off his flip-flop and props his foot up on the edge of the hammock, rocking it gently, rhythmically, as he scans the water absently for signs of distress. Andrew puts on his sunglasses and balances the book he’s reading on his chest. The angle is awkward—he keeps losing the position for long stretches and snapping back when the book starts to fall from his hand. 

Neil keeps the beat of the hammock’s swing steady. 

The book migrates from Andrew’s chest to his hand, and then from the taut weave of the hammock to the open air, hanging precariously off the finger Andrew has tucked in it to keep his place. 

Neil keeps the beat of the hammock’s swing steady. 

When the book finally slides off his finger, Andrew’s chest is rising and falling with deep, slow breaths. Neil can’t see his eyes behind the dark lenses, but the bonelessness of the wrist draped off the edge of the hammock is a sure sign of sleep. 

Very carefully, without disrupting the smooth sway of the hammock, Neil picks up the book and opens it to the first page. 

  
_((Blue Sargent had forgotten how many times she’d been told that she would kill her true love.))_


End file.
